Since the beginning of time men have endeavored to design and construct a repository, such as coffins and vaults, wherein the bodies of their deceased loved ones would be preserved and protected from the ravages of decay and decomposition forever. That ultimate goal has never been attained. To the contrary, it is an established fact that all human and/or animal corpses commence to decay and decompose immediately after death occurs
A recently published German newspaper article clearly attests to this corpse decay factor, and also provides data pertaining to the approximate rate of that decomposition. This item was published by the Deutsche Presse Agentur News Agency in March, 1994. It was re-published in the Mobile Press Register newspaper on Nov. 5, 1994. This article states, in its entirety, as follows:                “The Deutsche Presse Agentur News Agency reported in March that German cemetery operators are worried about the increasing resilience of embalmed bodies. Because of the country's land shortage, burial plots are often only rented out for 15 year periods, with the hope that the bodies will have decomposed by that time, and that families will not object to their disposal. Cemetery owners are now avoiding certain soils that retard air and moisture circulation, because they restrict the growth of bacteria that eat the bodies.”        
Prior art coffins do not provide any significant protection from decay and decomposition. Most of the available units are very ornate and extremely expensive. There are no coffins in today's marketplace, i.e., funeral homes and mortuaries, which have been specifically designed or constructed to provide long time protection of the corpse. This fact has caused extreme distress, or serious psychological problems, to untold thousands of family member survivors throughout the world.
Several prior art coffins have been patented wherein the inventors have claimed that their coffin/casket was “air tight” or “gas tight”. Each such invention typically described an extremely complicated, albeit impossible to attain method for the mating and sealing of two or more segments. Each of these units also required an intricate set of complex valves for the cited purposes of withdrawing air from within the sealed coffin, and the injection of some type of unidentified gas thereinto. All of these types of coffins/caskets have been proven to be totally inadequate and ineffective, as evidenced by their complete absence from today's marketplace.
Smith (U.S. Pat. No. 2,516,488) teaches a casket which requires two (2) each complex valves (FIGS. 8 and 9) being mounted, in a through-wall manner, onto his casket. Smith further requires that the casket body member 1 be covered with a lid 4, with an “asbestos or other gasket 5” being interposed between said lid and body, and that the lid be secured to the casket body by means of twenty-two (22) bolts 12 (FIG. 1). The total failure of Smith's teaching is abundantly clear by the fact that said gasket material would have to be approximately sixteen (16) feet long to extend around the circumference distance of said casket. Whereas, the introduction of just one (1) single, infinite size cut, nick, break, or any other type of discontinuity within said gasket material, would ultimately result in the total loss of his required internal protective atmosphere. The probability that such a discontinuity will occur under the given parameters is clearly astronomical, or inevitable.
Eubanks (U.S. Pat. No. 3,898,718) teaches “a corpse container 15 comprising a high density outer skin 47 that is unitary with a foamed interior-being sealable about a corpse—and extending to meet and mate with the opposite half—to seal said corpse container.” (claim 1.e) Therewith, Eubanks clearly cites his intentions that the corpse become an integral part within the unitary, i.e., indivisible whole, of the corpse container 15 and the foamed plastic 49 within the outer skin 47. Eubanks reveals his intentions very clearly in his FIGS. 4 and 5. As is clearly evidenced therein, the interior of his corpse container is filled to capacity with the described enclosed materials. By virtue thereof, it is abundantly clear that there is no space whatever available within his corpse container for either a gaseous material, nor for any type of valve mechanism type of device.
Jalbert (U.S. Pat. No. 3,681,820) teaches “a burial system for vertically burying—of human remains—including a unique frusto-conical, completely sealed casket made of plastic.” The casket 6 includes a frusto-conical hollow body 70, with the large diameter, or “head end” of the casket body to be closed by means of a “circular cap 98”, and the smaller diameter end to be closed by an “end cap 114.” The corpse bearing casket 6 is required to be inserted into a prepared frusto-conical chamber 4, located within a burial vault 2, which was previously installed in a selected cemetery burial plot. Conspicuously absent from this invention is any type of provision for the evacuation of entrapped gases from within the casket.
As illustrated above, it is exceedingly clear that it would so not be obvious, nor physically possible for anyone skilled in the art to successfully utilize the valves taught by Smith, or by any other inventor, within the confines of the coffin taught by Eubanks to achieve indefinite preservation of human or animal remains. These prior art references do not contain any suggestion, either express or implied, that they may be combined in any manner whatever.
Some inventions patented in foreign countries have also taught similar types of un-workable and unsuccessful ideas pertaining to coffins. Becker (England-No. 17,056-A.D. 1910) taught a coffin “provided with a bottle of preservative in order that decomposition of the corpse may be arrested.” His teaching was to merely insert a small vial of some unidentified type of chemical compound within his coffin. He did not cite any concern nor procedure for the removal of any of the critical, decay causing atmospheric elements trapped therein.
Pothier (France-No. 3,435,494) taught a coffin “constructed of metal designed to reduce or eliminate the evolution of decomposition gasses and, on the other hand, to permit the evacuation of gasses of this type which may be evolved in spite of the arrangements made.” He appears to have copied the Becker idea, and placed therein—“a closed cartridge, containing a substance which is capable of giving off a gas, other than oxygen, and means operable from the exterior, for initiating the opening of the cartridge.” Pothier, like Becker, gave absolutely no thought whatever to the removal of any of the critical, decay causing, atmospheric elements entrapped within his sealed coffin.
All of the above cited patents, in addition to numerous other unidentified patents not mentioned herein, for caskets, coffins, and similar type burial containers, all suffer from a number of major disadvantages. Most specifically, the prior art patents fail to preserve the physical form, appearance, or condition of deceased animals and humans.